Chapter 195: “This is a Safe City…”
“There are so many ships flying in the sky!”
On the inland river, a large number of vessels moved slowly forward. A child standing on one of the decks tilted his head back, gazing eagerly at the airships passing overhead, his eyes filled with wonder and longing.
His father couldn’t help looking up as well. Hearing the child’s exclamation, he finally lowered his gaze and patted the boy on the head.
“Those aren’t ships. They’re airships.”
The child repeated the unfamiliar word in his childish voice. “Airships.”
Rui En was also standing on the deck. Compared to the countless airships filling the sky, or the enormous vessel beneath her feet—which she thought was magnificent beyond words—she was far more interested in the wide, long inland river winding its way beneath the ship.
So much water!
Not only was it not being carefully stored away, but it was even openly displayed for everyone to see.
Rui En stood on the deck with her parents, carefully peering down at the river. They watched the splashes churned up as the ship passed and the ripples spreading toward the banks.
Everything looked more or less the same no matter how many times they looked, yet they simply couldn’t get enough of the sight.
On the Broken River Wasteland, water was an incomparably precious resource. Here, however, it seemed to surge endlessly onward in a vast, mighty current.
“We’re here! We’re here—”
After an unknown length of time, a shout suddenly rang out from behind them.
“Everyone, check your belongings and make sure you have everything! Get ready to disembark!”
Most of the people aboard this vessel had come from the Broken River Wasteland. Under the influence of the Cognitive Lock, they still believed that this place belonged to [Ota].
People from other regions had chosen to believe in [Ota] because, over the past few months, its influence had allowed them to support themselves by mining. That was why they had traveled thousands of miles to reach this so-called “big city.”
But the people from the Broken River Wasteland were genuinely one hundred percent loyal.
Even now, they firmly believed that they themselves were the property of [Ota], that they were members of [Ota].
Over the past few months, the people of Broken River had been mining their region’s mineral deposits at a feverish pace, just like everyone else. The difference was that the people of the Broken River Wasteland had begun preparing to join [Ota] long ago, even as they continued to mine.
They packed their belongings, prepared dry rations for the journey, sharpened their weapons, and tidied themselves up, all in the hope of presenting themselves to the [Company] as “good assets.”
Yet even after finally arriving at [Ota], they were still left utterly dumbfounded.
“So this is the [Company].”
Rui En’s mother couldn’t get enough of the sight. “Are we really going to live here from now on?”
Rui En’s father took an excited, deep breath as well. “Looks like it.”
Rui En said, “Grandpa Tagu told us that here, as long as we work, we’ll definitely have enough food to eat and enough water to drink.”
“Tell Elder Tagu not to worry. We’ll definitely work hard.”
As Rui En’s father spoke, there was even a hint of pride in his voice. “We’re the [Company]’s assets, after all. Of course we’ll be wholeheartedly devoted to the [Company]!”
Carrying their luggage, the group disembarked and stepped onto a long floating gangway.
They were at the very front of the line and were the first to set foot on shore.
…
Zhou Jian felt as though he were dreaming.
He was an ordinary White Researcher, with a life story not much different from those of his fellow researchers.
He had gone to school, graduated, and started working. From then on, every day had been a blur of frantic activity, with barely an hour of sleep each night.
Although he occasionally felt utterly exhausted, when he compared his circumstances with those of others, he had to admit that scientific researchers still enjoyed a standard of living far superior to that of most people on Moon Silk, provided they weren’t at risk of having their brains removed.
Zhou Jian had thought that he would spend his entire life rushing through one busy day after another.
That was, until his team developed a targeted, sustained-release drug that dissolved the effects of aging.
The drug could not only slow aging but also extend people’s lifespans to around 150 years, allowing the human body to remain in peak condition for most of that time.
At that moment, the first emotion felt by every member of the team wasn’t joy.
It was fear.
They had only wanted to achieve a few modest results, get a promotion, and improve their benefits. They hadn’t wanted to send their brains straight into glass tanks!
Fortunately, everyone wanted to keep their brains intact. The entire team, who had already been colleagues and friends, now became a community of shared interests in the truest sense.
They erased the experimental records and worked together to make the project look like a failure.
Although every single one of them was demoted and their standard of living plummeted overnight, the good news was that their brains were safe.
After that, everyone needed to enter shelters to escape the radiation. They took the opportunity to leave the [Company] and seek shelter independently.
Before entering his cryogenic pod, Zhou Jian had wondered what he would face when he woke up.
A hundred years or more later, Moon Silk might have been overrun by some kind of radiation-induced monster. It was also possible that he would never wake up again at all.
But no matter how he imagined it, he could never have anticipated that the world awaiting him upon awakening would look like this.
“So, your friend’s shelter was tampered with by the [Company]. She woke up early, joined this faction calling itself [Ota], and recommended you. Then you thought of us.”
“But the shelters where the rest of us were located fell within the territories of the Three Major Companies. So you waited until [Ota] had dealt with all three companies and become the most powerful force on Moon Silk before reporting us to them. Then they dug me out.”
Zhou Jian finished explaining. Sitting opposite him, Jin Yin sipped her drink and nodded along.
She said, “I thought your shelter had been tampered with too. I didn’t expect you genuinely hadn’t woken up. What did it feel like when they dug you out?”
Zhou Jian replied, “Have you ever experienced opening your eyes to find a group of people standing in front of you, then being taken outside, where more than a dozen airships were waiting in the sky?”
“My first thought was, ‘That’s it. My brain is as good as gone.’ I kept thinking about it the entire way here.”
“And now, here I am, sitting right across from you.”
Jin Yin burst out laughing. “Then you had it easier than I did. At least ten thousand people came to pick me up back then!”
Zhou Jian: “…Do we really need to compare?”
He cautiously glanced around and lowered his voice. “Are you sure this is a faction we can throw in our lot with?”
“Relax.” Jin Yin stood up. “How about this? I’ll take you somewhere. Once you’ve seen it for yourself, you’ll understand.”
Zhou Jian hurried after her. “Where are we going? What are we looking at?”
Jin Yin casually waved to the drink shop’s attendant, signaling that they could simply deduct the cost from her membership card. As she pushed open the door, she answered Zhou Jian.
“The Science and Technology Institute.”
The Blue Sea Science and Technology Institute had also undergone a comprehensive upgrade during this latest city advancement.
It looked practically like a small city in its own right.
From the outside, one might simply think it was large. But once Zhou Jian stepped inside, his eyes gradually widened.
Jin Yin had practically made the Science and Technology Institute her home, and she was intimately familiar with everything there. She began giving him a knowledgeable tour as they went.
“This area researches geothermal planets and the extraction of energy from planetary interiors…”
“Over here is gravitational field research. You know, back when we were in school, we even visited the old gravitational field research site…”
“Look at this! This project is developing composite armor…”
“Nanomaterials…”
“Synthetic ecosystem research…”
“Weather control research. Look at the person inside…”
Zhou Jian was dazzled by everything he saw along the way. The place was so enormous that they couldn’t possibly cover it all on foot, so they rode bicycles around, weaving between the various departments.
He peered through a glass window, and his eyes suddenly widened.
“Luo Man?!”
“Isn’t she the one whose portrait hangs on the wall at our university…?”
Jin Yin nodded firmly. “She’s a Black Researcher, our senior from university. She didn’t die. She just entered a cryogenic pod.”
Zhou Jian clutched his head. By this point, even he had figured it out. This enormous area belonged entirely to scientific researchers.
They clearly had complete authority over their respective research projects.
Jin Yin asked, “Now you get it, right?”
Zhou Jian nodded. “I get it. Thank you, Sister Jin! Thank you for remembering me!”
Suddenly, through the window, he saw the sky outside change dramatically in an instant.
“What’s happening?”
Jin Yin stepped up to the window. “I don’t know, but I think I have an idea.”
Ever since [Ota] had suddenly begun accelerating its operations and bringing back every Moon Silk native it could find, she had vaguely suspected something.
Yet it always felt as though something was blocking her brain, preventing her from thinking too deeply about it. But since she got to eat her fill every day, with extra meals thrown in from time to time, Jin Yin had no particular desire to force herself to think things through.
Now, however, as the sky outside continued changing at an ever-increasing pace, it felt as though the entire city were flying out into the universe. Jin Yin sensed that some part of her mind that had long been obstructed was gradually recovering.
——
Cheng Qisheng was moving the Safe City again.
The time of the Great Annihilation was fast approaching. All the Tier 5 Safe Cities had already evacuated, leaving only a dozen or so Tier 6 Safe Cities behind. Relying on their superior speed, they had managed to hold out until the very last moment.
Now, everyone was racing toward the greater universe.
——Blue Sea Safe City successfully emerged into the greater universe.
For the city’s residents, the change happened in an instant. The sky they had been looking at, with its white clouds, was suddenly replaced by the vast, star-filled expanse of the cosmos.
The people of Moon Silk cried out in astonishment, but with the Blue Sea staff prepared for this, they were gradually reassured and calmed down.
Meanwhile, almost every researcher in the Science and Technology Institute froze for a full second at the same time.
The reaction was especially pronounced among the 451 researchers.
Almost all of them opened the skylights and gazed up at the boundless starry sky above.
Their expressions changed several times. They seemed on the verge of laughter, yet at the same time, on the verge of tears.
“A Safe City… This is a Safe City…”
Beneath the starry sky, they slowly turned around and looked through the windows at the enormous planet behind them.
At that moment, the actions of the faction calling itself Blue Sea—bringing people from every region of Moon Silk back to the city by every means possible over the past few months—finally made sense.
They slowly walked outside and stood atop the high-rise buildings, gazing at the enormous statue of the Blue Sea Creator God in the center of the Science and Technology Institute.
The 451 researchers were scattered across different rooms and locations, yet every one of them wore the same expression of relief.
——So that’s how it is.
That apocalyptic plan meant to save everyone.
That plan an entire generation had worked together to create.
That plan which had ultimately lost sight of its original purpose and been destroyed.
What the people of Moon Silk had failed to accomplish—
A Safe City called Blue Sea had achieved.
Cheng Qisheng had put her Safe City into suspension mode, hoping to see whether she could devour the rules of the “Cognitive Lock.” She had also taken a quick look at the Great Annihilation.
Suddenly, she sensed something.
Among those 451 researchers, nearly all the remaining scientists who had not yet placed their faith in her became her believers at almost exactly the same moment.
